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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) handling of a recent investigation into a salmonella outbreak that sickened 68 people in 10 states—sending more than 20 to the hospital—had all the elements of a B-grade spy movie. The CDC identified the source of the contaminated food, but refused to make the name public, instead calling it Restaurant Chain A, and saying only that it was a Mexican chain. It could have been any one of six such chains that operated in the affected states.

That seemed like odd behavior from an agency whose responsibility is to save lives, protect Americans, and save money through prevention. Although no one died in this outbreak, which came to light last fall, salmonella is frequently fatal, so outing the culprit could have saved lives. Revealing the identity of the mysterious Restaurant Chain A would have allowed customers to protect themselves by avoiding the place, if they chose. And a little negative publicity might have been just what was needed to convince those in charge of the company to clean up their act, perhaps preventing future outbreaks.

But the CDC kept the eatery’s identity under wraps.

This did not sit well with Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney whose firm specializes in litigating food-borne illness cases. Marler is nothing if not tenacious—just ask the dozens of food processers and fast-food outlets who have paid more than $600 million in claims to his clients in the past two decades.

The CDC has a policy of seeking “cordial relationships” with companies who supply information voluntarily,” said its deputy director, Robert Tauxe in an interview with MSNBC that was quoted on Marler’s blog. It publicly identifies a source of food-borne illness, he said, “only when people can use that information to take specific action to protect their health.” The reason Restaurant Chain A had been admitted to the CDC’s equivalent of a witness protection program was that the outbreak had already run its course.

Reporters for Food Safety News, an online newspaper funded by Marler’s firm contacted all six of the possible companies. They either refused to reply or insisted that they were not Restaurant Chain A. The reporters kept digging and eventually received a document leaked from Oklahoma’s Department of Health. (Oklahoma was one of the affected states). Marked “for internal use only” the document was called “Summary of Supplemental Questionnaire Responses Specific to Taco Bell Exposure of Oklahoma Outbreak Associated Cases Multistate Salmonella Enterititis Outbreak Investigation.” It’s a long, convoluted title, but the important words were “Taco Bell.”

Even once Taco Bell was outed, the CDC maintained its code of omerta. Taco Bell, which the CDC found to have been responsible for a 2006 E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak that sickened more than 70 customers in the Northeast, did not return my call, but the company did put a cryptic post on its website linking to the CDC’s investigative report about the recent salmonella outbreak but did not own up to being at fault.

A restaurant poisons its customers. A government agency colludes to keep its identity under wraps. And it takes a scrappy group of reporters to uncover the truth for Americans. Talk about a sickening situation.

5 comments

This was most likely caused by improper storage at a food distirbutor for Taco Bell so the CDC didny want to place blame on them when it was code viloations by another company and maybe something Taco Bell did t know.

Thanks Barry, good story. I know that if my restaurant were ever the source of something like this, it’d be all over the press in minutes and I’d be out of business the next day. Unconscionable what they’ve done here. All the more reason to EAT LOCAL!

Sickened 68 people? That they know about. How many didn’t know they were sick because of eating at Taco Bell? That’s why Taco Bell didn’t want anyone to know. Liability. Yum Foods has deep political pockets when it comes to protecting their a** but not so much when it comes to paying for tomatoes and safe (as well as nutritious) foods, not to mention paying to have competent employees who actually care.